Category Archives: Busines

Apr 26 2013
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Business, Leadership, Organizational Development

Can you be liked as a leader?

Jeff Haden wrote a great article recently in INC Magazine, called “6 Habits of Remarkably Likable People.” As I’m currently reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and have been putting a lot into the ”likability” of a person. Controversial thought suggest that, especially for women, the more successful we become, the less we are liked. Below I’ve included Jeff’s thoughts on the six habits of remarkably likable people:

1) They lose the power pose.
Our parents taught us to stand tall, square our shoulders, stride purposefully forward, drop our voice a couple of registers, and shake hands with a firm grip. White that is a great to display of nonverbal self-confidence, it can also seem like you are trying to establish your importance. That makes the “meeting” seem like it’s more about you than it is the other person. Take a look at how Nelson Mandela greets Bill Clinton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzmkt7MtL64

So, the next time you meet someone, relax, step forward, tilt your head towards them slightly, smile, and show that you’re the one who is honored by the introduction. We all like people who like us. If I show you I’m genuinely happy to meet you, you’ll instantly start to like me.

2) They embrace the power of touch.
Nonsexual touch can be very powerful. Touch can influence behavior, increase the chances of compliance, make the person doing the touching seem more attractive and friendly. Go easy, of course: Pat the other person lightly on the upper arm or shoulder. Make it casual and non-threatening. Try this: The next time you walk up behind a person you know, touch them lightly on the shoulder as you go by. I guarantee you’ll feel like a more genuine greeting was exchanged. Touch breaks down natural barriers and decreases the real and perceived distance between you and the other person—a key component in liking and in being liked.

3) They whip out their social jiu-jitsu.
You meet someone. You talk for 15 minutes. You walk away thinking, “Wow, we just had a great conversation. She is awesome.” Then, when you think about it later, you realize you didn’t learn a thing about the other person. Remarkably likeable people are masters at Social Jiu-Jitsu, the ancient art of getting you to talk about yourself without you ever knowing it happened. SJJ masters use their interest, their politeness, and their social graces to cast an immediate spell on you. It’s sounds easy, and it is. Just ask the right questions. Stay open-ended and allow room for description and introspection. Ask how, or why, or who. As soon as you learn a little about someone, ask how they did it. Or why they did it. Or what they liked about it, or what they learned from it, or what you should do if you’re in a similar situation.

3) They whip out something genuine.
Everyone is better than you at something. Let them be better than you. Don’t try to win the “getting to know someone” competition. Try to lose. Be complimentary. Be impressed. Admit a failing or a weakness. You don’t have to disclose your darkest secrets. If the other person says, “We just purchased a larger facility,” say, “That’s awesome. I have to admit I’m jealous. We’ve wanted to move for a couple of years but haven’t been able to put together the financing. How did you pull it off?” Don’t be afraid to show a little vulnerability. People may be (momentarily) impressed by the artificial, but people sincerely like the genuine.

4) They ask for nothing.
You know the moment: You’re having a great conversation, you’re finding things in common… and then bam! Someone plays the networking card. And everything about your interaction changes. Put away the hard-charging, goal-oriented, always-on kind of persona. If you have to ask for something, find a way to help the other person, then ask if you can. Remarkably likeable people focus on what they can do for you—not for themselves.

5) They “close” genuinely.
“Nice to meet you,” you say, nodding once as you part. That’s the standard move, one that is instantly forgettable. Instead go back to the beginning. Shake hands again. Use your free hand to gently touch the other person’s forearm or shoulder. Say, “I am really glad I met you.” Or say, “You know, I really enjoyed talking with you.” Smile: Not that insincere salesperson smile that goes with, “Have a nice day!” but a genuine, appreciative smile. Making a great first impression is important, but so is making a great last impression.

6) They accept it isn’t easy.
All this sounds simple, right? It is. But it’s not easy, especially if you’re shy. The standard, power pose, “Hello, how are you, good to meet you, good seeing you,” shuffle feels a lot safer. But it won’t make people like you. So accept  that it’s hard. Accept that being a little more deferential, a little more genuine, a little more complimentary and a little more vulnerable means putting yourself out there. Accept that at first it will feel risky. But don’t worry: When you help people feel a little better about themselves—which is reason enough—they’ll like you for it.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/6-habits-of-remarkably-likeable-people.html?nav=featured

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Apr 04 2013
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Empower, Leadership, Organizational Development, Personal Development, Team-Building

Success

The further I progress in my career, the more appreciation I have for great leadership. Even great leaders—who seem to naturally just have it all—face a multitude of challenges every day. The Marketing Director of my firm spends her time communicating strategy, helping people through developmental challenges, holding on to excellence in the face of compromise, and just navigating management at the firm. It’s safe to say that the work doesn’t end—even after you get to the top. One of the many things that I admire about the leadership in my department is the willingness and desire to work with the team as an equal. In my experience, I’ve seen leadership executed in two ways: 1) in charge, or 2) not there. For the first time in my career, I’m experiencing a different kind of leadership—a kind where a leader can sit with their team without needing to be in charge, using their  subject matter knowledge the same way as anyone else around the table would. It’s acting as a resource—and just another member of the team.

Les McKeown, author of “Predictable Success” (@lesmckeown) wrote an article recently in INC. about this same topic. He offers some key advice for leaders, which I’ve provided below:

1. Start with something small. Pick a topic that’s controllable. Don’t start with something that bets the ranch. It’ll only make you anxious, and you’ll end up grabbing the reins back when things lurch off kilter.

2. Start with something you’re not passionate about. Find a topic that doesn’t fire you up. Maybe new employee on boarding rather than redesigning the entire company’s branding, for example. Again, you want to be able to take part in the discussion dispassionately.

3. Nominate a leader (and tell them). Put someone else on charge of leading a session on your selected topic. Tell them  everyone in advance, but don’t lobby them. Or tell them how to lead the session. The goal is that you hand over facilitation to someone else, not that they become your glove puppet.

4. Be there. Sit through the entire meeting. Resist the temptation to absent yourself when things get boring or granular. That’s not being a resource, that’s cherry-picking. Everyone else has to work through the detail, and you should, too.

5. Participate. Sitting in stony silence isn’t being a resource any more than dominating the meeting. Participate, which means contributing when you have something to share that will be helpful to the rest of the group, and staying quiet when you don’t.

6. Be comfortable with silence. There is a time for silence, however the point at which everyone expects you to jump in and take over the meeting. Initially everyone will turn to you when a question is asked, or a decision has to be made. Say nothing, not even an explanation of what you’re doing. Jut be quiet, and get comfortable with silence. Let the person you put in charge of the session tease out participation from the rest of the group. If you do it, you’re back in charge.  

7. Take an action point or two. When it comes to mopping up the implementation points and doling out responsibility, take on a few for yourself. And don’t cherry pick the “leadery” stuff. Take some granular, janitor-level action points as well.

8. Resist the temptation to mop up afterward. When the session is over, let things sit as they are. Resist the temptation to email/call/drop in on others and recalibrate the results to reflect what you would have preferred the outcome to be. Do this once and no-one will trust you in a resource role again. They’ll just conclude (rightly) that you’re only pretending.

9. Rinse and repeat. Try it again after a while, this time with something larger, more strategic. Note what works and what doesn’t. Find your own style, you’re own way of “being there”, not just absent or in charge.

 You can also read the full INC article here: http://www.inc.com/les-mckeown/hardest-leadership-skill-to-learn.html
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Mar 26 2013
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Business, Leadership, Organizational Development

Start With Why

Start with Why is a great book by Simon Sinek. You can purchase the book through amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Start-Why-Leaders-Inspire-Everyone/dp/1591846447 and you can check out Simon’s TEDTalk How great leaders inspire action here: http://on.ted.com/t7Sz

Over the next few weeks, as I finish the book, I’m going to recap some of my favorite points on The Culture Difference blog.

Chapter 1: Assume You Know (excerpt from page 14 – page 15)
There is a wonderful story of a group of American car executives who went to Japan to see a Japanese assembly line. At the end of the line, the doors were put on the hinges, the same as in America. But something was missing. In the United States, a line worker would take a rubber mallet and tap the edges of the door to ensure that it fit perfectly. In Japan, that job didn’t seem to exist. Confused, the American auto executives asked at what point they made sure the door fit perfectly. Their Japanese guide looked at them and smiled sheepishly, “We make sure it fits when we design it.” In the Japanese auto plant, they didn’t examine the problem and accumulate data to figure out the best solution—they engineered the outcome they wanted from the beginning.

Every instruction we give, every course of action we set, every result we desire, starts with the same thing: a decision. There are those who decide to manipulate the door to fit to achieve the desired result and there are those who start from somewhere very different. Though both courses of action may yield similar short-term results, it is what we can’t see that makes long-term success more predictable for only one. The one that understood why the doors need to fit by design and not by default. In the book, Simon talks about how this is applied to hiring the right people and building a successful organization.

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Feb 22 2013
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Busines, Leadership, Organizational Development, Personal Development

Start-Up Stories

This month’s issue of INC Magazine featured an amazing article, “How I Got Started” which touches on the start-up stories of eight of the world’s most revered entrepreneurs. These defining stories about gambles that paid off, near-fatal screwups, and unexpected acts of grace are truly inspiring. It’s stories like this that reinforce entrepreneurship’s reputation as being thrilling and unpredictable. A few big picture take-aways include:

1. Look for the opportunity no one else sees. – Bobbi Brown
Bobbi credits her grandfather, Papa Sam, for her business savvy. An immigrant from Russia, Sam owned a successful car dealership in Chicago. One day a man came into the dealership with a large shopping bag. None of the salesman would approach him because he looked like he was ‘homeless’. Sam put his arm around the man and said, “How ya doing, Boss?” That homeless-looking man bought two cars that day. He paid in cash, which he was carrying in the shopping bag. Lesson: keep your eyes open, because you never know what’s going to come your way.

2. Embrace your strengths and hire around your weaknesses. – Clive Davis
Clive Davis recalls a time when R&B starting changing and hip-hop and rap were entering the picture. It’s a time when he realized what he, personally, could not do. It’s not about delegating. It’s about realizing that you really need someone else to strengthen your organization and help you foresee trends that yo might overlook. Lesson: It never pays to be a know-it-all.

3. Have the confidence to say no. – Tony Hawk
Tony Hawk learned the hard way that distractions in business can be dangerous. At the start of his business, he hired people who knew what they were doing and was able to step out of the day-to-day grind of the business. In this role, he could provide the oversight needed to run a healthy, successful business. When the business shifted its focus to products outside of the skate world, things took a turn for the worse. The company lost several million trying to sell a high-end denim line. Later, Tony’s partner wanted to start a surfboard brand. It was then that he realized how dangerous it was for the business to lose its focus. Ultimately, Tony bought out his partner and was able to re-focus his attention on the skate industry. A few hard-learned lessons gave Tony the confidence to turn down opportunities that don’t fit the brand. Lesson: it’s easy to lost focus. Don’t.

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Feb 21 2013
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Busines, Personal Development

Stress-Free Workaholic

Is there really such a thing as a stress-free workaholic? I think so. I think it’s possible to do more, without feeling overwhelmed. In part, this requires keen time management skills. Steve Tobak, columnist for Inc.com, outlines three simple rules that can help you do more, while making it feel like you are doing less:

1. Learn to give up—sort of.
When you are over-stressed and over-worked, and the ideas just won’t come, give up. Seriously: Just call it quits. Go home, go for a run, whatever. Once you relax, that’s when inspiration flows.

2. Work your tail off when you have to, not when you don’t.
Business happens in spurts. Whether you’re developing a product or building a business, those long hours don’t go on forever. It’s OK to kill yourself for a few weeks or months, as long as you can chill out for a while when it’s over. If you overwork yourself constantly, you’re asking for trouble.

3. Don’t take it out on others.
Maybe you can function at a high level, but if you’re simultaneously demotivating your team, then what’s the point? And if you take it out on family and friends, you’re just going to end up lonely and depressed.

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Jan 25 2013
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Busines, Leadership, Organizational Development, Personal Development

Bottom Line vs. Culture

Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO

I recently read this quote from Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh on hiring:

“We’ve actually passed on smart, talented people who could have had an immediate impact on our bottom line because they don’t fit in with the company culture.”

http://www.inc.com/hidi

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Jan 25 2013
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Busines, Personal Development

A Better To-Do List

I’ve always considered myself disciplined and good at time management; however, there’s always room for improvement. Below are a few tips on how to create and manage a better to-do list:

1. Prioritize your goals.
It’s important to meet deadlines, yes, but the items with the most immediate deadlines should not dominate your workday. Carefully consider which tasks will bring you closer to your most important goals.

2. Eat that frog.
I highly recommend reading, Eat that Frog! by Brian Tracy. It’s a quick read, with some really useful tips on being more productive and managing your time better. The idea is that you tackle the biggest, ugliest frog (task) first. Get it out-of-the-way first. Then move on to other, perhaps smaller, less ugly frogs.

3. Keep your list lean.
By simply eliminating the bottom 20 percent of your to-do list, you can focus on more pressing items. Assuming you have prioritized your goals first, eliminating these items should not negatively affect your productivity or set you back for the day.

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Jan 17 2013
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Busines, Empower, Leadership, Organizational Development, Personal Development, Team-Building

Lessons from Kindergarten

I love this recent post from Naomi Simson about the four business rules we all learned in Kindergarten. I’ve recapped her original post below. I would like to add a fifth rule, that incorporates an adult “nap time.”

One of RedBalloon’s business values is ‘a sense of humor and fun’. I am blessed to come to bound out of bed every day looking forward to my day at work. It strikes me that the basic tenants of encouraging fun and productivity in the workplace, I learnt between the ages of three and five.

If we share everything, play, be curious, hold hands and stick together. My bet is that we’d all manage to stay much more inspired at work and therefore intent on staying.

While this may sound like common sense, it doesn’t hurt to reflect on the simple things in life that made our younger years so much easier than life seems to be today.

Share Everything
When I was an employee in other people’s businesses I regularly heard ‘We need to improve our communication’. RedBalloon has a clearly defined, daily huddle schedule, weekly team meetings, one on ones, monthly company meetings and planning sessions – the agenda has three items, what is working, not working and where are you stopped. A problem shared is a problem halved and in most cases solved. This way the exercise creates stability, cohesion and transparency. It’s better to over communicate and be completely transparent – good news or bad.

Play
Games are really useful tools to keep people focused. We are all young at heart and appealing to this is an easy way to keep engaged.

Be Curious
Look and listen to colleagues and when something amazing happens, celebrate it. We all achieve great things in our roles everyday, yet many fail to acknowledge when we go above and beyond the call of duty. It’s very easy to forget, especially in the current employment market that most people have a choice about where they choose to spend their time.

Recognizing people is actually very straightforward and goes a long way to keep everyone motivated. Whether you opt for peer-to-peer recognition, customer feedback or more traditional management discretion, making sure that you have ample opportunity for formal and reward backed ‘thank you’ and ‘good effort’ celebrations is key to keeping people engaged and happy.

Hold Hands and Stick Together
I always remember the times that I was the newbie – quite often a very nerve-wracking time. The sooner someone feels part of something, connected to their colleagues, the vision of what the business is embracing, the sooner that attachment is possible. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if at three o’clock every afternoon we all sat down to milk and cookies? Whether it is a regular team lunch, beers after work or something more unusual like a group circus lesson, cooking class or hypnosis show, doing something as a group that is totally unrelated to what we do at work allows us to reconnect as human beings. The leveling effect of watching the top sales person get nervous at the trapeze or highly skilled programmer fail to toss a pancake is great for team morale.

“Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”


Most of all, Kindergarten was fun. And it’s okay to have fun in business.

The original post can be viewed here: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130117051936-1291685-four-business-rules-i-learnt-in-kindergarten

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Jan 09 2013
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Organizational Development

What’s your guiding principle?

What’s your guiding principle?
A response from Ping Fu, CEO of Geomagic.

“Bend, not break is a lesson I learned from my Shanghai Papa, who raised me in China and told me about the ‘three friends of winter.’ He taught me the pine tree stays green in the bitter cold, the plum blossom shows its brilliance when it snows and no other thing will smile, and bamboo is flexible and won’t break. He told me, ‘Ping, you must be bamboo.’ During the oppressive years of the Cultural Revolution and throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve found this story to be very comforting, because there were many cases where I needed to bend—but not break.”

Ping Fu co-founded the software firm Geomagic in 1997. Her new memoir, Bend, Not Break, contrasts her persecution in China with her rise in the American tech industry.

 

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Jan 02 2013
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Busines, Empower, Leadership, Team-Building

Conscious Leadership

Being that it is a New Year, I spent some time over the holidays consciously thinking about how I wanted to improve my life in 2013. My husband and I spent some time talking about our hopes for 2013. We vowed to make it a year of adventure—creating experiences and memories for us and our family. In terms of my career, I spent a lot of time thinking about building teams, collaborating, and how I can bring value to my company. The time allowed me to think consciously about where I am at, where I would like to be, and how I might get there—both personally and professionally.

I began thinking that for many, even those who are very experienced, not much consciousness is applied to leadership. If you ask a roomful of leaders (CEOs, Directors, Principals) how they got where they are today, the top answer is usually “I was lucky.” Not that it’s entirely “luck” but, most of them worked hard, made strong relationships and wound up in the right place at the right time.

Leadership courses use case studies to analyze the performance of successful leaders. These courses can help people develop a set of hard skills that are necessary in being a successful leader. However, the tendency is for these skills to be technical and managerial, while human skills are far harder to teach and pass on. Well-trained managers do not evoke the same response, that a conscious leader can. For some, these skills come more naturally, for others, they do not. Developing these skills requires a certain level of consciousness. Success, practiced consciously, brings value to both the leader and the team that he/she leads.

A recent article that I read, focused on the seven skills that fit a conscious leader, organized into the acronyms LEADERS.

L = Look and listen. Do this with your senses, being an unbiased observer who has not judged anything in advance. Do this with your heart, obeying your truest feelings. Finally, do this with your soul, responding with vision and deep purpose.

E = Emotional bonding. Leading from the soul means going beyond melodrama and crisis mode, getting rid of emotional toxicity to understand the specific needs of your followers.

A = Awareness. This means being aware of the following questions that underlie every challenge: Who am I? What do I want? What does the situation demand? A leader must ask these questions of himself and inspire his team to ask for themselves.

D = Doing. A leader must be action-oriented. In whatever he does he must serve as a role model, held responsible for the promises he has made. This requires persistence but also the ability to view any situation with flexibility and humor.

E = Empowerment. The soul’s power comes from self-awareness, which is responsive to feedback but independent of the good or bad opinion of others. Empowerment isn’t selfish. It raises the status of leader and follower together.

R = Responsibility. This means showing initiative, taking mature risks rather than reckless ones, walking the talk, having integrity, and living up to your inner values. Seen from the level of the soul, a leader’s greatest responsibility is to lead the group on the path of higher consciousness.

S = Synchronicity. This is a mysterious ingredient from the unconscious that all great leaders harness. Synchronicity is the ability to create good luck and find invisible support that carries a leader beyond predicted outcomes to a higher plane. In spiritual terms, synchronicity is the ultimate ability to connect any need with an answer from the soul.

Many of these principles can be applied to how we lead in our homes, amongst our friends, family, and other organizations. Leading doesn’t require that you be in a position of leadership or have a particular title. In fact, to truly lead, people must first be willing to follow you or learn from you. This is humbling and important to remember when you are, perhaps un-expectantly, put in a position of leadership.

You can read the full original article here: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121227230040-75054000-the-conscious-lifestyle-the-soul-of-leadership?goback=%2Enmp_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1&trk=NUS_UNIU_PEOPLE_FOLLOW-img-fllw

Deepak Chopra, MD is the author of more than 70 books with twenty-one New York Times bestsellers and co-author with Rudolph Tanzi of Super Brain: Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-being. (Harmony) and serves as Adjunct Professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, Columbia University.

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